Sharif acknowledges Kasab belongs to Pakistan; slams Zardari

PTIDec 19, 2008, 02.23pm IST

ISLAMABAD: Challenging President Asif Ali Zardari's assertion that there was no proof that the arrested Mumbai attacker hailed from Pakistan's Punjab province, former premier Nawaz Sharif has said that the suspect's village was cordoned off and his parents were not allowed to meet anyone.

"I have checked myself. His (Ajmal Amir Iman alias Ajmal Kasab) house and village has been cordoned off by the security agencies. His parents are not allowed to meet anybody. I don't undertand why it has been done," Shraif, who hails from Punjab, said in an interview to Geo News channel.

"The people and media should be allowed to meet Iman's parents so that the truth could come out in the open," he said, adding that "We need some kind of introspection."

Zardari, who earlier acknowledged that the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage could be 'non-state' actors from Pakistan, has now said there is still no "real evidence" that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai came from Pakistan.

"Have you seen any evidence to that effect. I have definitely not seen any real evidence to that effect," Zardari told BBC in an interview earlier this week.

Pakistani security agencies and local officials in Faridkot have launched a cover-up since India made it public that Kasab belonged to the village in Punjab province and his father acknowledged to a Pakistani newspaper that the gunman captured in India was his son.

Sharif also slammed President Zardari's rule, saying the functioning of the current Pakistan People's Party-led government is making Pakistan look like a "failed state".

Pakistan presents the picture of a failed and ungovernable state due to the absence of the government's writ and the country urgently needs a new roadmap to pull it out of the problems it is currently facing, he said.